


Now I lay him down to sleep

by Anathema Device (notowned)



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Snuggling, post-episode: S01e09 Knight Takes Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 15:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18853795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notowned/pseuds/Anathema%20Device
Summary: It's been a long, long couple of days, and Athos is so tired.





	Now I lay him down to sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thimblerig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/gifts).



> A gift for my dear Thimblerig. She knows why ;)

The meeting to plot the defeat of Richelieu and Athos’s —former? Late? —wife, had finally produced a plan after two hours of intense discussion and argument. It could have been better timed but the need to act was urgent. The queen’s enemies were ruthless and with unlimited resources.

Aramis had a wretched headache by the time they were done. Porthos and d’Artagnan were excited, cheerful, relishing the chance to take down a loathed enemy and one of his minions. They headed off to the tavern, where Aramis suspected someone—possibly d’Artagnan—would end up the poorer for their celebrations.

It was well past time the boy learned not to trust a smiling Porthos while playing cards.

Even before they had rolled out, laughing, Athos had walked out of Treville’s office without a word. He had barely spoken during the meeting, contributing only nods, head shakes, and once, a raised eyebrow which had immediately squelched d’Artagnan’s exuberance and his over-optimistic suggestion.

Treville looked at Aramis and grimaced. “Something else?”

“No, captain. I’ll take my leave too.” He stood, but Treville’s expression seem to hold a request to linger a moment, so he did, waiting silently.

Treville stared at the notes on his desk, then heaved a sigh. “He’s taking it hard.”

“Yes.” No need to specify which ‘he’. “He blames himself, for what reason I know not.”

“It’s Athos. He doesn’t need a reason. He...needs a clear head for this to work. And a steady hand.”

 _Ah._ “I’ll stop in before I return to the barracks, shall I?”

The thunderclouds hovering over Treville’s eyes lifted a little. “Thank you. Dismissed.”

Aramis tipped his hat and walked outside.

It had begun to drizzle, after days of unseasonable heat. Aramis loved the rain—when he could duck out of it with little effort—and tilted his face to the sky, letting the refreshing drops ease his head. He did not like this plan. Real injuries, faked death, these were risky enough. But playing with the most dangerous man in all Christendom and a murderously clever woman, both breathtakingly bereft of conscience or morals, could end with them all swinging from a rope.

Athos wouldn’t, though. Being a noble, he’d get the sword. What a comfort.

 _Athos, Athos, Athos_. Their leader, their lynchpin...their weakest link? It hadn’t taken much to coax from d’Artagnan, the details of Athos’s mysterious delay after their forced stop at La Fère. That they had come within a thumb’s breadth of losing the man to his very much not dead late wife, still made Aramis go cold at odd moments.

Now, that memory quickened his steps and strengthened his resolution, though he wished Athos did not live in one of the least salubrious streets near the garrison. He didn’t fear for himself, of course. Musketeer blue was well recognised by the regular low lives as a sign to keep away. There were always the newcomers and drunkards who could be nuisances, but their first contact with Aramis always taught them a lesson, even if it was the last thing they ever learned.

Though Aramis hated stepping over larger puddles of urine and vomit, bigger piles of offal and less pleasant refuse, than in other streets of Paris, there were worse things.  Dead things. Dead _people_. The sad duty of removing the deceased to the mortuary was one he would gladly avoid tonight.

He climbed the narrow stairs and knocked. At first softly, then with a little more impatience. “Athos, it’s me.”

****************************

The pain was like a circlet of molten iron around Athos’s skull. He was exhausted and fraught with emotions familiar and unfamiliar, making his chest tight and his brain ache worse than his worst hangover. He would not sleep this night either, not with this insane plot the five of them had cooked up.

Four of them, really. Athos hadn’t contributed much. He was still too appalled by Anne’s treason—and Aramis’s—to be able to think clearly about the cardinal. He had little faith that Richelieu would fall. Richelieu was the supreme survivor. If the Louvre was destroyed by fountains of lava, and the entire Parisian population set to the sword by invaders, the cardinal would sometime manage to scuttle away unharmed, like a rat or a cockroach, ready to align himself with—and then control—whomever promised to restore order to the capital.

He had poured wine, but the first few sips sat sour and leaden in his gut. He would need more than that to sleep, but he couldn’t bear swallowing more. He turned down the lamp and lay on his cot, arm over his face, wishing his demons would flee for even a few moments, just to have a few moments’ peace.

The scratch at his door had him instantly upright and reaching for his sword belt. A louder knock, then Aramis’s voice made him sag in frustration. Bloody Treville, interfering again. Did he think Athos would be in his cups with so much at stake, so much danger to their queen still present?

He hauled himself over to the door and flung it open. “Go away,” he managed to enunciate with the full weight of his breeding.

“Thank you, I won’t stay long.” Aramis forced himself past Athos’s rigid body, turned up the lamp, and sat down on the armour chest.

Athos heaved a sigh, and shut the door.

****************************

Aramis was pleased to note that the opened bottle of wine had been corked shut, and the cup beside the bed was still half-full. Athos of old could empty a bottle in less time than the walk to his rooms had taken, and be halfway through another.

But he was less happy to see Athos’s haggard countenance. “What do you want?” Athos asked.

“I was concerned—”

“ _Treville_ was concerned, you mean,” Athos snapped, aristocratic hauteur apparently all that was keeping him upright.

“We both were, my friend. Sit.”

“No. Why would you imagine _your_ company is particularly welcome?”

Aramis blinked at the sudden hostility. “Am I not always welcome? I had always thought being so amiable and well-behaved—”

“At least half this migraine belongs to you.” Athos sat on his bed with a thump. “And I’m tired. I had no sleep last night, unlike you. At least, I presume you got _some_ sleep.”

“Thank you, I did. Athos, I’m sorry—”

Athos glared, and a lesser man might have quailed at the cold fury in those green eyes. But then he slumped. “What’s done is done. I didn’t mean to bring it up again. I don’t wish to talk of it at all.”

“Perhaps wisest.” Fatigue probably accounted for most of his friend’s mood, Aramis reasoned. A long, hard ride, furious activity at the nunnery in its defence, and a long, anxious night on watch, would exhaust a younger man. How much the revelations of the morning had added to the misery, he didn’t want to consider. “The plan bothers you.”

“It’s lunatic.” There was no humour in his tone. “Suicidal. Too much depends on me. I don’t know if I can control myself in her presence.” He rubbed his face. “I don’t trust my aim.”

“You’re a perfectly decent shot. Not as good as me.” Athos nodded to acknowledge the simple truth. “But at a few paces, and with a target as large as d’Artagnan, how can you miss?”

“Oh, I won’t _miss_ him. The exciting thing will be to discover which part of him I hit.”

Aramis frowned. This kind of fakery was not new to them, and even d’Artagnan had played his part in schemes before. True, it didn’t usually involve one of them being _actually_ shot, but—

“You don’t drink as much as you used to.”

Athos lifted his head, surprised at Aramis’s _non sequitur_. “I drank because she was dead, and I had killed her. Now she’s not dead.”

“Indeed, though she remains a murderer.”

Athos’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

“My dear, d’Artagnan won’t _die_. With luck, he’ll have nothing but a scar with which to impress his paramours.”

“There has to be another way.”

“Perhaps there is. Perhaps tomorrow will bring fresh ideas. We must act soon, but we have a little time.” Aramis took off his hat, which earned him a narrow-eyed look. He ignored it, and rose to sit on the floor by Athos’s side. He tugged at his friend’s arm until Athos consented to be pulled down to sit next to him, then lay his palm on Athos’s cheek. “Are you angry with me, my dear?”

“You’re a damn nuisance, Aramis,” Athos grumbled, though he nuzzled against Aramis’s hand. “Of all the women in Paris, you had to choose _her_.”

“I didn’t choose...it was an unfortunate situation.” Athos grunted in disbelief. Aramis had to admit it was weak, as he had been. “Better to have slept with you.”

Athos shrugged off his hand. “Don’t mock, Aramis. You could have...still can have us all hanged because of this. And what of her? If the king finds out—”

“He won’t. Calm yourself.” He drew his friend closer, and to his relief, Athos didn’t struggle at the enclosing arm. Aramis buried his nose in Athos’s hair. Athos was utterly without vanity, wearing no perfume, and controlled his wild mop of curls by periodically hacking off the longest bits with a knife. His ablutions were similarly crude, though thorough. Even today when they had been harried from pillar to post, he’d found time to douse his head and wash face and neck. Free of sweat and dust, he smelled of horses and leather and gunpowder. Not the sweetest or foulest smelling man Aramis had ever lain with, but one of the most cherished, and so the scent of his hair was cherished too. He inhaled deeply, letting it ease his heart.

“You sound like Roger when you do that,” Athos murmured. Aramis grinned and did it again, taking Athos’s hand in his. “I’m tired.”

“I know, my dear heart. Will you let me help you sleep?”

****************************

It was as if Aramis’s words had cut all Athos’s strings. He went limp, letting Aramis take his weight. There had been only one other person in his life he had allowed such control over him, and she had betrayed that trust. Aramis—infuriating, puzzling, contrary, infinitely and deceptively charming Aramis—would never, even if he was responsible for every one of the grey hairs Athos had grown since he joined the regiment.

“Come to bed,” Aramis murmured. Athos let himself be manhandled onto the cot, hoping, as Aramis shed his boots and coat and breeches, that the aged thing would not collapse under their combined weights. It hadn’t yet, but with his luck lately....

Aramis turned down the lamp, and made some movements which Athos recognised was moving the cup of wine under the bed. He settled his weight against Athos, a warm, firm bulk that Athos wanted to bury himself in, and let it smother the devils besetting him. The devils which never stopped, had never stopped since the day Anne had been hanged.

Except for this. The rare, precious times that he let himself accept it from Aramis, or Porthos. Both generous, both kind. Both so forgiving of his many, dreadful flaws.

“Shhh, dear. Stop thinking. I can hear you.” Athos grinned a little against Aramis’s neck. “What do you need?”

“Nothing. Just this.” Aramis’s hand slid delicately down his braies. “No, thank you. Not that.”

Aramis retreated, and laid his hand over Athos’s heart. “As you wish.” He kissed Athos’s cheek, lips warm, damp, teasing. If Athos had been capable right then of responding, that would have aroused him.

But he was so tired. He had been holding himself so tightly, so desperately, that he hadn’t noticed the bits of himself falling away, in danger of being lost forever. Until now. Until Aramis came to effortlessly scoop up all the loose scraps of his soul, bundle them carefully against his breast, and stuff them back into Athos’s heart, safe until he began to fray again.

“She’s dangerous,” he mumbled, struggling not to be utterly pathetic.

“Hush, we know. Tomorrow we’ll think again. Tomorrow, you will be rested and strong. Tomorrow, we work. Now, we rest.”

He stroked Athos’s hair, his beard, in repetitive, gentle movements. Athos’s attention narrowed until all he could think of was the touch, the warmth of Aramis’s hand on his skin as it skimmed his stubble. Everything else disappeared, all thoughts faded.

Nothing else existed, except Aramis’s tender hand.

****************************

Aramis kept stroking until long after Athos’s breathing had deepened and lengthened, signalling his tormented friend was finally soundly asleep. Then he removed his hand and tucked it inside Athos’s shirt, so he could feel the beat of that overworked, too burdened heart.

He accepted his share of the blame for Athos’s anguish, and to be fair, Athos had not attempted to blame him for all of it. Milady was a cancer long in the making, and yet to be excised.

Tending to Athos allowed Aramis to avoid thinking about Isabelle, and of Anne...her Majesty. Athos’s smell, his body, the roughness of his hands held no reminder of that forbidden intimacy, though this intimacy was as forbidden.

Athos belonged to Aramis in a way Isabelle never had, and Anne could never do. Aramis could depend on Athos, could lean on him. Could lie with him and share affection, as Aramis could never again with them.

Could trust him unconditionally. Because no matter how sincere Anne had been, she was not just a woman. She was France, and belonged to the King. She would never be free to act entirely on her conscience alone.

Athos was loyal to the crown. They all were. But as brothers, they had a higher duty to, a higher love for each other.

Aramis prayed he would never be asked to choose between queen or brother. He could not believe a loving God would ever ask it of him, but he had seen enough cruelty, more than enough evil, to be certain it would never happen.

Losing Isabelle had ripped at his heart, but it was a wound he would survive. If Athos had died at the nunnery....

His grip tightened on his sleeping brother. Death was ever present, and they threw themselves into each day’s battles careless of the risk.

But to actually lose Athos. Or Porthos. Or the ever amusing and energetic d’Artagnan.

No, that would be too much to bear.

His headache was gone, and he needed to sleep because a new assault on their queen could come at any time. He kissed Athos’s cheek, and settled himself a little better. He closed his eyes and listened to Athos’s breathing, letting it carry him down.  But as he slipped into sleep, he made one last prayer.

_Lord, keep them safe. Take me if you need a soul, but leave them here where they do such good. Hold them close as I do, I beg you, for they are good and worthy of love._

 

**Author's Note:**

> All comments, corrections, and criticism welcome!


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